Harry Potter: Cursed Child Discussion

[Vindicare]

I can't really judge either the play or the script, but after skimming the summary, the story does seem rather fan-fictiony I'm also annoyed by the time travel plot device cause the time turner clearly didn't work that way in the PoA In that story, the time turner couldn't actually change the past, the events in the past were caused by the time travel instead of being altered (pretty much creating a self-fulfiling prophecy). Usually I prefer time-travel stories that use alternate timelines à la Back to the Future (since the other approach creates weird problems with the notion of free will), but not in this case, you can't just have both in the same continuity In my book, only Doctor Who is allowed to do that for that show is primarily about time (and space) travel

Just to add to what xboxtravis7992 said below,

I can't recall exactly, but I believe the time turner used in Cursed Child was a jerry rigged turner. That could've played a part in s rewind with continuity as well.

There is a brief dialogue line that explains why the alternate universes happened why it didn't occur in PoA:

Apparently the reason Time Turner's such as Hermione's in PoA are limited to hour time is because magic laws dictate "traveling 5-hours into the past" has no harm to the time line and creates a self fulfilling prophecy (such as in PoA). Beyond that time slot though things just get weird...

Maybe the time travel plot was a response to the HISHE Harry Potter video? :)